For generations cooks and bakers have mixed flour with a liquid such as milk, water, or the like and other ingredients to form a plastic mass or dough in the preparation of bread, pastries, doughnuts and the like. After the dough has been prepared, a rolling pin having a cylindrical body with a handle at each end has been used to roll out the batch of dough until the dough is approximately at a desired thickness. Ordinarily the batch of dough is rolled into a generally circular mass having a diameter which is greater than the length of the cylindrical body of the rolling pin and this has been accomplished by placing the rolling pin at the center of the batch and moving it radially outwardly while applying a downward pressure on the handles at opposite ends to spread the dough to a desired thickness.
With this type of rolling pin, it has been difficult to obtain a constant thickness, particularly from batch to batch of the dough because the rolled out batch of dough covers the base material on which it is being rolled so that the thickness may be judged only at the periphery of the mass. Also, if more pressure is applied to one handle than the other, or if more pressure is applied at the center of the mass than at the periphery, the thickness of the mass of dough will be non-uniform.
Some efforts have been made to alleviate the problems of thickness and non-uniformity by placing gauge wheels on a rolling pin at the ends of the central body and between such body and the handles. This has not been satisfactory because the batch of dough ordinarily is spread out to a diameter which is larger than the length of the cylindrical body and one or both of the gauge wheels penetrate or cut the dough being rolled.
It has been suggested that the cylindrical body be lengthened so that the gauge wheels will remain clear of the rolled out batch of dough. This has not proved satisfactory because the handles were then so far apart that the cook or baker had difficulty in applying sufficient pressure on the batch of dough to roll the dough to the desired thickness.
Further, when the gauge wheels have been mounted between the cylindrical body and the handles, if a greater pressure has been applied to one of the handles, the gauge wheel at that side has tended to function as a fulcrum and pivot the other end upwardly. Even if the difference in pressure is not sufficient to pivot the other end upwardly, the resilient consistency of the batch of dough is sufficient to cause the other end of the rolling pin to ride up on the dough and cause non-uniformity in the thickness of the dough.
Some examples of this type of rolling pin are disclosed in United States patents to Heissenbuttel Nos. 39,916; Taylor 353,177; Wolff et al 534,460 and 550,337; Broecker 1,534,907; and Kuzyk 3,994,652.